Ebola Pandemic Coming to America?

NoisyRoomSpeculation has been rampant about the threat to America from the West
African Ebola outbreak that has infected at lease 1,300 and killed 887 people to date, including one American.Initial outbreaks in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have now spread to Nigeria with a second confirmed case
– a doctor who treated the now dead American. Eight other Nigerians are
quarantined with three showing symptoms. A Liberian died recently in Morocco, a suspected case has been reported in the Philippines, and now a man with Ebola symptoms who recently traveled to one of the affected West African countries has been isolated at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City and is being tested for the illness.Speculation was further fueled upon the announcement that two other
Americans infected with the disease would be coming home for treatment.
One, Dr. Kent Brantly, has been here since Saturday – at a special
isolation unit in Georgia’s Emory University Hospital – and appears to be recovering. The other, Nancy Writebol, a missionary reported to be “in serious but stable condition,”
will be coming to the same facility Tuesday. Brantly received blood
transfusions from a West African boy who recovered fully, and Writebol
received an experimental serum. Researchers have had some success with experimental treatments in animal experiments, and the serum given to Writebol appears to be working. CDC claims a vaccine will be tested in humans soon but there is none to date and the virus is 60 – 90 percent fatal.So is there a pandemic threat?Well there are certainly people saying so. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, was quoted
as saying “Let me give you some frank assessments of what we face… this
outbreak is moving faster than our efforts to control it. If the
situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic
in terms of lost lives but also severe socioeconomic disruption and a
high risk of spread to other countries…”Other experts say that while Ebola is deadly, it is not spread
easily, requiring direct contact with bodily fluids for infection to
occur. American doctors, they say would contain any outbreak quickly. So why is it spreading so fast in Africa?In a video interview last month,
former Border Patrol agent Zachary Taylor created a sensation when he
claimed that unlike prior Ebola outbreaks that moved from the jungle
into populated areas, this time it started in the centers of African
cities – suggesting this was bio warfare. However, he provides no
evidence to back his assertions.According to the World Health Organization, the outbreak started in
”forested areas in south-eastern Guinea.” Infected individuals carried
it to the other contiguous countries. It was unique only in that prior
outbreaks had occurred in Eastern Africa. The likely vector was tainted bat meat.
Bats carry the disease and apparently are eaten by rural tribes. The
virus is spreading because facilities in Africa are not on par with
those in America and because native populations are refusing treatment:Workers and officials, blamed by panicked populations for spreading
the virus, have been threatened with knives, stones and machetes, their
vehicles sometimes surrounded by hostile mobs. Log barriers across
narrow dirt roads block medical teams from reaching villages where the
virus is suspected. Sick and dead villagers, cut off from help, are
infecting others.Taylor furthermore asserted that the border crisis is “asymmetric
warfare” – a diversion. He says the Border Patrol is only catching 10
percent of the illegal aliens, and while we focus on “the children,” a
mere 1 – 2 percent according to Taylor, others are bringing in the tools
to kill us.Does that include Ebola? He is certainly correct that focus on “the
children” is a diversion. Most of the unaccompanied alien “children”
(UAC) are actually teenage boys 15 -17, and they only represent 1/5th of
those caught. There have been 50,000 plus UACs apprehended, but also
another 240,000 who are either not unaccompanied or are adults. The
media has studiously overlooked this fact.If Taylor is correct that only 10 percent are caught, that would mean
as many as 2 million additional illegal border crossers are getting
through. In a fact-finding trip to the border however, Maryland Sheriff
Chuck Jenkins reported that the Border Patrol believes they catch
upwards of 70 percent of border crossers.[1] Still, that means they are missing over 100,000.West Africans Penetrating the Southern BorderDave Hodges of the Common Sense Show asserts that
“the arrival of Ebola through our southern border has already happened
or is imminent.” He interviewed Dr. Jane Orient, who quoted unnamed
Border Patrol agents saying as many as 100,000 Africans are among those
penetrating our southern border. Hodges says the Africans are coming
here as part of a new, emerging drug-trafficking operation emanating
from Western Africa. They even have learned Spanish to blend in with the
Latinos coming across.Largely unknown and unreported, there is a small but growing
trafficking operation to the United States from West Africa, primarily
in the materials used to manufacture methamphetamine. Cited in Hodges’
article is a 2013 report from the U.S. Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control. The Report states:Since 2006, DEA estimates that sub-Saharan Africa has become a major
transshipment point for precursor chemicals used in methamphetamine
production destined for the Americas…According to the report, one international operation seized 35
suspicious shipments of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine estimated to be
capable of producing 48 tons of methamphetamine. “[The operation]
highlighted the emergence of Africa as a major precursor transit point
and stockpile location of essential precursor chemicals bound for
Mexico.”The report concludes: “In the coming years, methamphetamine and
heroin produced in West Africa could easily appear in U.S. markets on a
much larger scale.” Given government’s penchant for understatement, the
problem might have already grown to a “much larger scale.”Still, suggesting 100,000 border crossers are all from West Africa is almost certainly way overstated, but some West Africans are penetrating the border. Brandon Darby at Breitbart News today published a leaked “Official Use Only” Customs & Border Protection (CBP) document
that lists the country of origin of every single person apprehended at
the border by CBP from 2010 – 2014. In 2014, 81 West Africans from the
three major outbreak countries of Guinea (31), Sierra Leone (22) and
Liberia (28) have been caught or turned themselves in. The report also
identified Nigeria as making the list of the top five “Third Country
Nationals,” with 28 TCNs apprehended during the week of 7/14/2013 –
7/20-/2014. Statistics from Inspections and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
are not included in this report, but my sources have not reported
finding any Africans at all.So the likelihood exists that one or more of these illegal aliens
could be infected. Many of the Latino illegals flooding the border are
bringing in diseases and parasites. If they entered with the Africans
there is a chance they could become infected with Ebola as well. They
have been shipped around the country under a veil of secrecy. But word
is getting out:

A Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) facility in Artesia, New Mexico used to house illegals has been locked down following an outbreak of Chicken Pox.

A week earlier, the same facility, found 89 of its 603 detainees who tested positive for tuberculosis, though none had contracted the disease.

A DHS Office of Inspector General report
states that border agents and their families are contracting the
diseases and parasites brought in by illegals. A Border agent and others
in Texas have contracted TB.

(b) Severe acute respiratory syndromes, which are
diseases that are associated with fever and signs and symptoms of
pneumonia or other respiratory illness, are capable of being transmitted
from person to person, and that either are causing, or have the
potential to cause, a pandemic, or, upon infection, are highly likely to
cause mortality or serious morbidity if not properly controlled. This
subsection does not apply to influenza.”

In 2003, section (b) was specifically added to address Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), but since that disease is not now
considered a threat, the order has been revised. Diseases contemplated
in this section are not named, however, section (a), which predated
President Obama, does list other illnesses not covered in (b). These
include: Cholera; Diphtheria; infectious Tuberculosis; Plague; Smallpox;
Yellow Fever; and Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers (Lassa, Marburg, Ebola,
Crimean-Congo, South American, and others not yet isolated or named).Some writers have expressed concern with the wording “apprehension,
detention or conditional release,” given the current crisis, but that
language is actually part of the original executive order signed by President Reagan in 1983.So is Obama hiding something? Undoubtedly but probably not about
Ebola. Could illegal West African aliens cause a deadly epidemic?
Doubtless they could infect and kill those traveling with them and any
border or health official who unknowingly interacted or treated them. So
there is reason for serious concern, especially by those charged with
protecting our borders.Even though numerous health officials have said that fears of an epidemic in the U.S. are overblown,
a healthy dose of caution advises that the situation be monitored
closely. Unless and until President Obama takes his Constitutional
responsibility to protect and defend our borders seriously, he and his
serially irresponsible administration are leaving our nation and its
citizens open to every form of danger. The fact that an outbreak might
not lead to an epidemic would be grim consolation to those families who
lost loved ones just because this President refused to do his job.